1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept described herein through illustrative embodiments thereof relates to an interface card, a network device having the same and a control method thereof, and more particularly, to an interface card which is capable of sending and receiving data over a network in both a sleep mode and an active mode, a network device having the same and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Certain electronic devices have an “active” operational mode in which normal operations are performed and a “sleep” mode in which standby operations are performed, which consume less power than the normal operations executed in the active mode. Such an electronic device is an interface card of a network device, which is connected to a network such as an Ethernet compliant network or the like. Usually, such interface cards are provided with a driving power, even during the sleep mode, so that the device may respond to requests from external network devices.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram to illustrate a configuration of a typical interface card of a conventional network device. The interface card 100 for the network device includes a central processing unit (CPU) 112 and an Ethernet controller 114, which are provided as a system on chip (SOC) 110, a non-volatile memory 120, a volatile memory 122 and a transmitter-receiver 124.
The transmitter-receiver 124 receives packet data from an external network device and outputs the packet data to the Ethernet controller 114. The Ethernet controller 114 processes the input packet data and stores the packet data in the volatile memory 122. The CPU 112 processes the packet data stored in the volatile memory 122 via a software protocol stack configured in accordance with the applicable network protocol, such as a transmission control protocol (TCP), an Internet protocol (IP) or the like.
In the configuration where the CPU 112 and the Ethernet controller 114 are provided in a single unit of SOC 110, however, power is provided to the entire circuit all the time. That is, power is continuously supplied to the CPU 112, the Ethernet controller 114, the non-volatile memory 120, the volatile memory 122 and the transmitter-receiver 124 regardless of whether the network device is in the active mode or the sleep mode. Consequently, power is unnecessarily consumed by the non-volatile memory 120 and the volatile memory 122 during standby operations of the interface card.